# what actually has to die to follow jesus?

An episode of [AfterMass](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1823710125), 5 Mar 2026, 15 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO3105073207.mp3

What actually dies when you decide to follow Jesus? In this episode of 40 Days at the Foot of the Cross, we reflect on a truth that many Christians don’t expect: discipleship always costs something. When Christ calls us to follow Him, He’s not just asking for belief. He’s asking for surrender. And that surrender often means letting parts of our old life die.In this Lenten reflection, we talk about the hidden sacrifices that come with walking closely with Christ. The comfort we cling to. The habits we excuse. The identities we build around ourselves. Jesus never promised an easier life, but He did promise a transformed one.💌 Contact me: theaftermasspodcast@gmail.com⚡ Powered by Truthly 👉 Download the app: bit.ly/anaXtruthlyGet a free 30 day trial with code AFTERMASS#Catholic #CatholicPodcast #AfterMass #CatholicFaith #CatholicChurch #ReversionStory #ComingHome #AnaMunley #TruthlyAI

## Transcript

[0:00] Hi friends, and welcome back to Aftermath.
[0:02] If last week we stood at the foot of the cross and admitted
[0:04] that you don't get to follow Jesus while skipping suffering,
[0:07] this week we need to go a little further and ask a more
[0:10] uncomfortable question. When you say yes to Christ, what
[0:13] actually dies? First, most of us assume this
[0:16] answer is pretty obvious. We think the first thing that
[0:18] dies is sin. We assume that following Jesus
[0:20] means obvious moral correction and clear behavioral reform and
[0:24] physical improvement. And while all of those things
[0:27] certainly happen, it's not the first and deepest death that
[0:30] discipleship demands. More often than not, with dies
[0:33] first is our version of how our life was supposed to go.
[0:36] There's a difference between giving up sin and surrendering
[0:39] self will. Giving up sin can allow us to
[0:41] remain in control of the larger narrative.
[0:44] We can modify our behavior while preserving the architecture of
[0:47] our personal plan. But when Christ calls us to
[0:51] follow him, He's not merely asking us to clean up the
[0:54] exterior of our life. He's asking us to allow Him to
[0:57] reorder our loves and priorities, expectations, and
[1:01] sometimes even our imagined future.
[1:04] That's why Peter becomes such an important figure for us again.
[1:07] In the Gospel of Mark passage that we reflected on last week,
[1:10] Peter doesn't rebuke Jesus because he wants sin.
[1:13] He rebukes him because he wants victory.
[1:16] He has attached himself to a vision of the Messiah that
[1:18] includes restoration and strength and triumph.
[1:21] And when Jesus begins to speak about suffering and rejection,
[1:25] Peter resists out of misplaced expectation.
[1:28] And that is incredibly important for us and very relatable.
[1:31] Most of us don't resist God because we're consciously
[1:34] choosing evil. Peter wasn't consciously
[1:36] rebelling, but we resist him because we've already
[1:39] constructed a version of what faithfulness should produce.
[1:43] We've decided what obedience should look like in very
[1:45] practical terms. We've attached hope to specific
[1:48] outcomes. And when God's path begins to
[1:50] dismantle those outcomes, it really does feel like a loss
[1:54] more than grace. Following Christ often means the
[1:57] death of the script that we wrote for our own life.
[1:59] It means the collapse of timelines that we've carefully
[2:02] planned and the surrender of control over how quickly healing
[2:05] should happen for us, or how smoothly relationships should
[2:08] resolve, how clearly vocation should unfold.
[2:11] And when those things start to unravel, it doesn't feel holy.
[2:15] It feels very destabilizing, like somebody took the rug from
[2:18] underneath us. So This is why so many of us
[2:20] experience confusion early and serious discipleship.
[2:24] We begin praying more intentionally, and we begin
[2:26] confronting sin honestly and surrendering habits.
[2:29] But instead of feeling clarity, more often than not, we feel
[2:33] exposed. The ground feels a little less
[2:35] stable than before, and what's actually happening isn't a
[2:39] regression, but a reordering. The foundation that was built on
[2:43] self direction is being replaced with trust.
[2:45] That replacement requires for something to die.
[2:48] Not our personality or agency or our intelligence, but our
[2:52] insistence on being the final authority over our own
[2:55] narrative. That insistence is often more
[2:57] deeply rooted than any obvious sin that that we could name.
[3:01] There are moments when God allows our plans to stall
[3:03] because he's dismantling our reliance on control.
[3:07] There are seasons when prayer feels dry because he's shifting
[3:10] us from emotional consolation to deeper fidelity.
[3:13] There are relations, relationships that don't resolve
[3:15] in the way that we hoped, but that's because our trust is
[3:18] being refined. The first death in discipleship
[3:21] is often interior and quiet, a slow recognition that God's will
[3:26] isn't an accessory to our life plan, it's really the center of
[3:29] it. And that can feel like a loss
[3:32] because we confuse surrender with removal, right?
[3:35] We assume that if our version of the future dies, then something
[3:39] essential in US has been destroyed or erased.
[3:42] But what actually dies isn't our identity.
[3:44] What dies is the illusion that we authored it.
[3:47] We were never meant to carry the burden of ultimate authority.
[3:51] We were meant to participate in a story that began before you
[3:54] and extends beyond you. When Christ calls us to follow
[3:57] him, he's not shrinking our life.
[3:59] He's aligning it with something way larger.
[4:02] But alignment requires relinquishment.
[4:05] The cross exposes where we are still negotiating with God, and
[4:08] it reveals the places where we say yes conditionally.
[4:12] It uncovers how often our obedience depends on this
[4:15] visible reassurance that we always seek, and when that's
[4:18] removed, we feel very vulnerable in a way that is really
[4:22] uncomfortable for us. Yet vulnerability is not
[4:24] weakness in the Christian life. It's really the soil where trust
[4:28] grows. The death of self will doesn't
[4:31] happen in a single moment. It happens repeatedly each time
[4:34] that we encounter a situation where our preference conflicts
[4:38] with fidelity that that that's when we are being invited into
[4:41] that death again. Every single time that our ego
[4:43] is challenged, every time our control is threatened, our pride
[4:47] is exposed. The cross stands before us as
[4:50] both confrontation and invitation.
[4:53] And what makes this particularly challenging in modern life is
[4:57] that we are conditioned to optimize outcomes.
[5:00] We're trained to measure progress, to curate perception,
[5:04] to build these carefully structured plans.
[5:06] And again, none of these things are inherently sinful.
[5:09] But when they become the foundation of our sense of
[5:12] security, then surrender almost feels like collapse.
[5:15] Christ doesn't dismantle our life to humiliate us.
[5:18] He dismantles our illusions so that we can be free.
[5:21] But the illusion of control feels safer than the reality of
[5:25] trust, especially when we can't see where the path leads.
[5:29] So the question for this week isn't simply what am I giving
[5:32] up? It's what version of myself am I
[5:35] clinging on to? What outcome am I quietly
[5:38] demanding? What timeline am I protecting?
[5:40] Because that's the first thing that has to die.
[5:43] So if the first death and discipleship is the collapse of
[5:46] self will, the second is even more subtle.
[5:49] It's the reordering of love. Saint Augustine famously
[5:52] described sin as disordered love, meaning loving lesser
[5:56] goods as though they were ultimate.
[5:58] That is our daily reality. We attach ourselves to good
[6:02] things, and then we elevate them beyond their proper place.
[6:05] We attach to comfort, recognition, relationship,
[6:09] security, to the feeling of being right.
[6:12] When those things are loved more than God's will, they become
[6:15] obstacles rather than gifts. Following Christ doesn't require
[6:18] us to despise created goods. It requires us to love them
[6:22] rightly. And loving them rightly means
[6:24] holding those things loosely. This is where the cross becomes
[6:27] intensely practical for us, because it confronts the
[6:30] hierarchy of our own loves. It asks whether God's will is
[6:34] truly first in your life, or whether it's competing with
[6:37] other priorities. It asks whether we can accept
[6:40] the loss of a good thing without losing trust in him.
[6:43] When Jesus speaks about losing 1's life in order to find it,
[6:47] he's not speaking only about the physical martyrdom.
[6:50] He's speaking about the relinquishment of ultimate
[6:53] attachment to anything other than God.
[6:55] Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
[6:58] He says it in the Gospel of Matthew.
[7:00] That is reordering. The reordering of love can feel
[7:04] like grief, though, because it often involves letting go of
[7:06] something that we've deeply desired.
[7:08] It might involve letting go of a particular vision of success, or
[7:12] accepting that your vocation isn't going to unfold in the way
[7:15] that you imagined. Or maybe it involves loving
[7:18] someone without receiving the response that you hoped for, or
[7:21] forgiving. When our pride wants vindication
[7:24] and all of these moments, something dies, and that death
[7:27] feels very real, and it's not sentimental or superficial
[7:31] because it touches the core of how we imagined our life would
[7:34] feel. But if you remain there long
[7:36] enough, you begin to notice something else emerging.
[7:38] When attachment loosens, space opens.
[7:41] When control is surrendered, anxiety lessens.
[7:44] When pride is humbled, your relationships deepen.
[7:47] When God becomes central rather than peripheral, interior
[7:51] steadiness grows. The reordering of love is quiet
[7:54] and interior. It feels less like triumph and
[7:58] more like stillness, and you can begin to realize that your peace
[8:01] no longer depends entirely on circumstances aligning.
[8:05] You begin to see that you're worth isn't tethered to
[8:08] performance. We begin to trust that even if a
[8:11] specific desire isn't fulfilled, we're not abandoned.
[8:15] That's what it means to participate in the pattern of
[8:17] the cross. It's not about chasing this
[8:19] weird suffering. It's about consenting to
[8:22] transformation through that suffering and that
[8:24] transformation and that suffering.
[8:26] Those things ain't never comfortable, and that's OK.
[8:28] The cross doesn't strip away our humanity, it refines it.
[8:32] It doesn't erase our desires, it purifies them.
[8:35] It doesn't erase our capacity for joy.
[8:37] It deepens it by anchoring it in something that's more stable
[8:40] than whatever outcome it is that we're hoping for.
[8:42] So when we feel resistance this length, when obedience feels
[8:46] like a little too much, and when surrender feels like loss, don't
[8:50] immediately interpret that as failure.
[8:52] It could be the exact place where your love is being
[8:55] reordered. The question is whether you'll
[8:57] trust the process enough to remain.
[8:59] Because following Jesus is not about surviving the discomfort.
[9:02] It's about allowing him to shape you through the discomfort.
[9:06] And what dies when you follow Christ isn't your identity or
[9:10] your dignity or your agency. What dies is the the illusion
[9:14] that you can construct your life apart from him and still be
[9:18] free. That illusion is sometimes
[9:20] subtle, and it hides under ambition or fear or
[9:24] perfectionism, maybe even under well-intentioned spiritual
[9:28] discipline. But once the illusion begins to
[9:30] collapse, we discover something way steadier underneath.
[9:35] We discover that freedom doesn't come from control, it comes from
[9:38] trust. And trust is learned at the foot
[9:41] of the cross, when we stop resisting the interior deaths
[9:45] that discipleship requires. At first it feels like
[9:49] diminishment is happening. At first it almost feels like
[9:52] narrowing, feels like something is being taken from us.
[9:56] But over time, if we remain, if we don't retreat back into self
[9:59] protection, we begin to realize that what's dying was never our
[10:04] life in the 1st place. It was the illusion that we've
[10:06] created to secure it all by ourselves, on our own.
[10:10] When self will begins to loosen, when attachment begins to
[10:14] reorder, something steadier begins to emerge.
[10:17] We become less reactive and less anxious about outcomes that we
[10:22] can't control, less dependent on affirmations from the world to
[10:25] feel stable. That shift is because our
[10:28] interior posture has changed before surrender.
[10:32] We live in this like tension. We're calculating and managing
[10:36] and anticipating, trying to make sure the future unfolds in a way
[10:39] that preserves our sense of identity and security and what
[10:43] we envision. And you might not articulate it
[10:46] that way, but the anxiety is there, the tightness is there,
[10:49] the need to steer everything in a particular direction is there.
[10:53] After surrender, there's a different kind of strength.
[10:56] It's not loud strength or impressive strength, but quiet
[11:00] endurance. A willingness for us to remain
[11:02] faithful to him even when the clarity is absent.
[11:05] A capacity to accept being misunderstood without collapsing
[11:10] ourselves. A steadiness that doesn't depend
[11:13] on this reassurance, whether it's visible or not.
[11:16] That's the fruit of cruciform living.
[11:19] We often talk about freedom in emotional terms.
[11:22] We imagine freedom as the absence of constraint, the
[11:25] ability to do what we want, when we want.
[11:27] The Christian freedom is something else entirely.
[11:30] It's the ability to choose the good even when and it costs us.
[11:34] It's the ability to remain in love when pride demands retreat.
[11:39] The ability to obey even when we don't understand.
[11:42] And that kind of freedom only comes through death to self
[11:46] will. Think about how often our
[11:48] frustration comes in from an unmet expectation.
[11:51] Not not tragedy, nothing that big, but misalignment.
[11:55] We expected something to unfold in a certain way and that it
[11:57] didn't. We expected recognition and we
[12:00] were overlooked, or we expected clarity and we encountered
[12:03] vagueness and ambiguity. We expected healing to be quick,
[12:06] and it was slow and painful. The pain in those moments isn't
[12:10] just the circumstance, it's also the death of expectation.
[12:13] If expectation has become an idol, its collapse will feel
[12:16] like devastation. But if expectation is
[12:19] surrendered into trust, its collapse can become
[12:22] purification. Now, this doesn't mean that we
[12:25] stop desiring good things. It means that the desire is
[12:28] anchored in God rather than those specific outcomes.
[12:31] The cross is the ultimate example of this orientation.
[12:34] From a purely human perspective, it looked like failure.
[12:37] It looked like loss. It looked like humiliation
[12:39] without resolution. But what appeared to be defeat
[12:42] was the very means of redemption.
[12:44] When you unite your smaller deaths to that pattern, you
[12:47] begin to see that what feels like collapse is actually an
[12:50] invitation to deeper trust, to pure love, to freedom that
[12:54] doesn't fluctuate with circumstances.
[12:56] But this process is repetitive. It's often unnoticed by anyone
[13:00] but God. It's choosing not to defend
[13:03] yourself when your pride is bruised.
[13:05] It's choosing fidelity when your emotions fluctuate, choosing
[13:08] obedience when your preference pulls you elsewhere.
[13:11] Choosing forgiveness when vindication would feel oh so
[13:14] satisfying, or choosing prayer when dryness tempts us to
[13:18] disengage. Each one of those moments is a
[13:20] small participation in the cross, and small participations
[13:23] can shape your soul. You're not going to wake up 1
[13:25] morning and feel entirely free from self will.
[13:28] You're not going to suddenly stop caring about outcomes.
[13:30] What happens instead is gradual transformation.
[13:33] The grip loosens U the anxiety softens, the compulsion to
[13:38] control weakens, and you begin to recognize that what died was
[13:41] never your true life. It was the version of life built
[13:44] around you as a center. That's why Christ says that
[13:47] whoever loses his life will find it.
[13:49] He's not threatening us. He's inviting us into reality.
[13:53] A reality in which your life isn't sustained by your ability
[13:56] to manage everything, but by your participation in divine
[13:59] love. If you reflect honestly this
[14:01] week, you'll probably see at least one area where self will
[14:04] is still negotiating. Maybe a relationship or a plan
[14:08] or a fear. Or maybe it's an image of
[14:10] yourself that you're protecting at all costs.
[14:13] Whatever it is, don't rush to fix it.
[14:15] Sit with it, you bring it before the Lord, name it, and then ask
[14:18] for the grace not just to change behavior, but to surrender
[14:22] authorship, because that is the deeper death, not the death of
[14:26] personality or dreams, but the death of the illusion that
[14:29] you're safest when you're in control.
[14:31] The cross teaches something radically different, that you
[14:34] are safest when you're aligned with love, even when love costs.
[14:37] And that alignment is what we're walking toward this length.
[14:40] That is all I have for today. Thank you so much for being here
[14:43] with me. If you have any questions or
[14:44] comments or anything you want to share, you can leave it below or
[14:47] e-mail me at theaftermathpodcast@gmail.com.
[14:50] I'm your host, Anna, and I will see you aftermath.

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